


Stupid Cupid

by DancerInTheMoonlight



Category: Glee
Genre: (or an attempt thereof), Allegory, Alternate Universe, Attempt at Humor, Bees, Fluff, Goddesses, Honey, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mythology - Freeform, POV Sebastian, Some Plot, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26146189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancerInTheMoonlight/pseuds/DancerInTheMoonlight
Summary: "Oshun, Anansa, Samedi, Min, Astarte, Ishtar, Morrigan, Freya, Bastet, Rati, Tu Shen, Ichpochtli, Lada, Kuni, Venus, Aphrodite . . . Melissa. I didn’t know half of her names, but whatever you wanted to call her, she was always there. She had countless forms in countless cultures, and this was the one I knew. And, well, loved, sometime a youth ago.How could I have not? She had picked me as her own and blessedly, I had belonged for the tiniest period of time. Then she left her marks for the world to see.Told me I had a duty now, and that it was sacred."
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

” _Twinkle, twinkle little star_

_Let’s have sex inside my car?_ ”

As he read out loud, Mr P‘s eyes did that thing when they bulged so intensely it seemed they might pop out of their sockets altogether at any given moment. My inability to shun the mental image of freshly popped eyeballs rolling off the principal’s desk and bouncing away across the floor must have shown on my face, because Mr P. continued with less incredulity and more force.

“In what kind of scenario is this an appropriate academic conversation?” The words fizzled through his teeth. “And in class, no less!” 

“Would you believe me if I told you it was an early Valentine’s card?” I replied innocently enough.

“An early ––” he trailed off, mouthing wordlessly as his eyes were threatening to pop out once more. Still unable to trust myself not to laugh at imaginary eyeballs bouncing across the room, I hurried to create a diversion and redirect the impending incredulity into something closer to anger.

“Well, you told us to be inventive, Mr P. And besides, I was about to translate it into French when it was taken from me…”

This did not soothe the man in the slightest, judging by the way his hand clenched around a piece of paper torn out of my French notebook. It was a nice piece. Recycled. Such a waste.

It did stop his eyes from bulging out again, though. Whew.

“You think this is funny, Mr Smythe,” his tone took a solemn turn and I sensed it was time for one of his educational laments. “I can assure you, it is _not_.”

I guess I asked for it.

Throwing caution to the wind has never been among my best qualities. This might have been pushing it a bit too far, though; even if I had been bored out of my mind back there in French class. Frenching was against the class policy, for one.

Still, it wasn’t, in my opinion, half as bad as that time when some nerdy blonde freshman was caught with his hand down my pants in an apparently-not-so-secluded corner of the library. (Needless to say the spot rapidly lost its popularity.) Or that one time when a very hot and a very closeted guy on the opposing lacrosse team cornered me in the locker room. (At least that’s how I told the story.) Or that time when I convinced the student council president to take his shirt off during lunch hours in the cafeteria on a dare. (People didn’t know the extent of my persistence back then.)

Besides, it was an all-guys boarding school, what did they expect?

Not that it necessarily forced me to seek out men in my everlasting quest for youthful pleasures in any way significantly different to how it made me seek out women, for same sport. It’s just that sneaking people from the world outside our little private bubble is liable to get messy, even if we do share some of the facilities with an all-girls private school across the block. (And the all-girliness of it sure as hell doesn’t make them all lesbians, judging by the amount of certain attestedly male parts of human anatomy that many of them had been deeply familiarized with. Mine included.) It doesn’t even matter which of them I like better –– I simply prefer what’s closer to instantaneous gratification. I want, I take.

Also, I’m kind of irresistible; and this is not some kind of wild, ego-boosting statement, it is plain fact. I take one look at people and I know what they want. And in most cases, I can help them with it. Which brings us to the root of the problem.

“You’re not even the root of the problem.”

_Wanna bet?_

Mr P. gave me a helpless look. “It’s this wild and uncontrollable behaviour of the general student body. It’s like there’s something in the air! Like allergies! This– this widespread insatiability, blown out of every proportion under the pressure of milking the fact that you are all young and alive. Which, apparently, translates to a teenage mind as reckless, senseless and gluttonous. It conveniently turns everything into a tryst!” 

Exactly.

“Sometimes I think your systems operate on pure physicality!” Oh, like you wouldn’t believe. I snorted remembering the last person that made the naïve mistake of trying to catch my gaze and hold it. No idea what his eyes looked like, but his undisclosed desires were an interesting shade of purple. Some very vivid projections, as well. Mr P. misinterpreted my snort as somewhat offensive and gritted his teeth. “These are _mad hungers that grow more ravenous as they are fed_ , Mr Smythe,” he went all Wilde on me. “Some things are not to be messed with.”

Not to be messed with. I don’t think there ever was a time when I hadn’t been fond of messing with people’s heads. And it’s safe to say that this… _aptitude_ only grew from the second I began developing my abilities. I’ve become unstoppable.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes a single piercing look for people to go mad with desire.

Nobody understands this like I do.

Even though it works like a dream for personal advantage, one look is what it takes for most human beings to go wild in general, not necessarily for me. Let their subconscious or whatever the hell it is take over, and things –or rather, people– get done on a whim. Of course, this works the other way around, as well. One blunt look and both eyes and hearts are averted.

Anyway.

“I expected better of you, Mr Smythe,” Mr P. sighed. “You have not been with us for very long and yet, you have proven yourself an invaluable asset, what with your academic excellence and with your significant presence on the student council, and as captain of the school’s lacrosse team. Not to mention the SciLab, and the glee club…”

He had me there. I did, in fact, strategically buzz my way into several school clubs with different social backgrounds, all of which, except one, made me their captain in record time. Not that I was overly excited at being a team player, but being the one in control –and without having to employ my god-sent abilities– was something completely different. Refreshing. 

As for the odd one out, The Warblers were a glee club similar to a high-functioning social colony within a bigger colony. Despite being some form of the school’s elite, they oozed this air of unquestionable domestic stability, of acceptance and wholesome care for new members and respect for the older ones; of open communication that gave introduced some fluidity into a firmly defined hierarchy. They were like a sophisticated private school beehive. Unfortunately, a hierarchy meant the entire hive worked together to support their elected Queen. Or in this case, King.

Newly emerged from his cell, Blaine Anderson was the recently-established and well-adored captain of the Warblers. Here’s a fun fact. When a young virgin queen emerges from its cell, it is vital that she seek out her virgin queen rivals first, in an attempt to kill them before they kill her. This is so because ultimately, there can be only one queen, surrounded by a colony of members willing to instantly sacrifice their life for their regent and hive. It’s a subconscious reaction. The law of nature.

Now, I wasn’t exactly a _virgin_ rival, but I’ve had my fair share of stinging to know I could never be the one to die for my hive. It’s one of the main reasons we left the Old Place.

Still, I made the Warblers like me enough to immediately let me in, and their captain had been pacifistic enough, which, for now, was enough to secure a position on another part of the social spectrum. Everybody wanted to be a Warbler. And being acquainted with one was possibly the second best option.

“I am not in any way personally interested in either your sexual preferences or how you spend your free time––” Mr P. was saying, albeit somewhat unconvincingly, “–but I _cannot_ emphasize enough the impact your own behaviour may have on the student body in general, seeing as you are a council representative and a class president.” The Principal frowned.

Right. _Time to refocus and talk your way out of this, Smythe_.

“Well, you see, Mr P.,” I hesitated, like I assumed a good boy would have done. Not that I had a specific one in mind. “The whole thing was meant to be a joke, not something to actually go around. It wasn’t meant to be sent to anyone.” Not in English, anyway.

Mr P. offered me a doubtful look. I recalled he did catch me in the act himself, once. I said the first thing that came to my mind because, occasionally, inspiration struck.

“The truth is, some of my friends and I came up with a dare to create the bluntest, most ridiculous pick-up line before Valentine’s Day. The best one would have to be used by all the losers on the very day, its creator alone being spared.” Given my history of _in flagrante_ , this sounded fairly plausible. He didn’t have to know that people only liked me for my looks, which managed to either entice or intimidate them into some form of submission, and that, therefore, I had no actual friends. Only acquaintances. It was all a nice front, all fun and games. That way no one could get close enough to actually hurt me.

There was a silence. Then– 

“Hm. If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Smythe, what on earth happened to plain old courting? The nobility of a single flower, bestowed as a sign of affection, in hopes for more? Striking up nice conversations about the weather?”

I stared.

“Does this direct way of asking for sexual engagement alone signify the death of all courtliness among the newer generations?” he pondered.

“Well, that depends. On whether you consider courting an artificial way of exerting control over something which is, essentially, beyond anyone’s control. In a culture deeply submerged in artificial communication, a direct statement appears nothing more than an obscenity. How is talking about the weather more acceptable than asking for what you actually want? Nobody should be led on for the sake of conventional phrasing.”

The Principal seemed to consider this.

“Besides,” I decided on an extra flourish to my little speech, “where does courtliness end and un-courtliness begin?” A slight smirk was added for good measure.

“Indeed.”

Mr P. was still for a few seconds, and then he suddenly clapped his hands together, as if he’d just thought of something brilliant.

“Seeing as you are _very_ gifted at posing questions which hit the mark, I believe you should be the one to test that theory,” he announced. I was confused.

“You mean I should start asking for sex with a flower?”

“I _mean_ that this questionable line between courtliness and un-courtliness is worth exploration, especially since we are but a week away from one of the most commercialized unofficial holidays in the world.”

Oh?

He smiled at me, sweetly.

_Oh_.

Please, _please_ don’t say it.

“I want _you_ to explore it, Mr Smythe.”

Dang it.

“Principal Sylvester has been asking me to lend her a helping hand in organization of a formal event which would join our student bodies in celebration of fertility and love –not my words– and bring us closer together, as neighbouring schools. Seeing as you are both senior class president and a student of many talents, I believe you are the perfect choice for this task.” He made it all sound very formal. “Not to mention it will enable you and your friends to channel your creativity and occupy your spare time . . . better,” he finished pointedly. He glanced at some notes.

“On the other side of organization is a Miss Brittany S. Pierce, another senior class president.”

You have _got_ to be kidding me. This suddenly explained why the whole thing sounded like a lively, multitudinous hippie orgy. Not that I’d actually met the said Miss Pierce, but I’d heard stories.

“A meeting will be held on Monday morning, at their part of the facilities. I expect you to be there,” he informed me, determination in his voice. “Oh, and you are welcome to bring someone to assist you.”

That was it, then. Fortunately, I still had one ace in the hole. Nationals were coming up, and he knew it. It couldn’t hurt to try.

“But sir, the Warbler practice–” 

“–will have to go on without you. I’m sure your captain will understand.” There was finality in that statement to which I didn’t have a reply.

“That will be all, now. Have a good day, Mr Smythe,” Mr P. bared his teeth unattractively. “Go be a busy bee.”


	3. Chapter 3

Here’s the thing.

I tolerate clichéd school parties as much as the next popular guy, but Valentine’s Day _really_ isn’t my shot of mead. Probably because I’ve never found any thrill in idol-worshipping other people.

Have I ever been ‘in love’? Of course I have.

People flutter in and out of love all the time, that’s what makes it so easy to manipulate. It’s easy to become enslaved by one’s own attractions and aversions, unless they are actually seen for what they are.

Which I do.

It requires expertise, to reveal that what people illustriously designate as _love_ originates, in fact, from a fidgety place buried deep down within human nature. It’s a place called _desire_ – risky and irrational, and volatile in a way that prompts you to enjoy it, while it lasts. I myself met a man of my dreams just last week on the dance floor, piercing him with a look so sharp all he could do was dance his way into my arms. And are we still together, you might ask? Why, sadly, no; we broke up about 20 minutes after we met. But that’s falling in love for you.

What inflames the heart cannot but consume it. And it takes an expert on attraction to know it cannot be controlled. Only encouraged.

Speaking of which. . .

“Sebastian!”

My footsteps echoed pleasantly on the granite floor as I approached the owner of that sweet baritone which called my name in the mostly deserted hallway. He was standing with hands resting in his pockets, waiting for me, his expression betraying a mixture of relief and concern. While those luscious lips quirked with a smile, the honey eyes glimmered with unspoken worries. I allowed myself a not really subtle once-over, if only to appreciate the way his customized slacks pulled across a perfectly shaped ass, just visible under the hem of his blazer. Blaine Anderson was quite the catch.

He was a prized member of the colony.

The one everybody wanted to fuck and die for.

Personally, I’m not so sure about the dying part, but I have to admit I would never forget the day we met, in the Dalton choir room.

It was a semester ago. I had only just started school there, and it kinda sucked because I was just getting comfortable at the last one, where I’d spent almost an entire year and experienced something akin to friendships. However, due to a case of profoundly developed paranoia on his side, my father and I habitually moved from one place to another, in order to get away from his psycho ex-wife. (And when I say psycho, I am decidedly _not_ being a dramatic teenager.)

So anyway, that was me– always the new bee in the hive. It got old really quickly. But this little bee learned fast, which is the reason why I was in the Dalton choir room on that day, last-minute auditioning for the Warblers, whom I successfully enticed into performing a number _with_ me, while shamelessly showing off my dancing skills. Blaine, who’d been absent for some reason, was suddenly spotted mid-song, all dapper and casually leaning against the door-frame, a doting expression on his pretty face. Led by some kind of inexplicable attraction, I did the cockiest thing a newbie possibly could. I grabbed his hand and pulled him in, doe-eyes, dark hair and all. Which, surprisingly, proved to be the right move: after he got over the initial surprise, it was clear the boy had some moves of his own.

When the song ended and the returned captain was jovially clapped on the back, I went to introduce myself as the newly acquired member of the Warblers. I knew I was in.

Over the course of the last couple of years, I’d come to live for that moment, ever since I’d been ‘reborn’ with my abilities. The moment in which I pierced in, cut through the surface and made people uncover their desires, and better yet, make people _act_ on them. The moment which often got me what I desired.

“Blaine Anderson, Sebastian Smythe.”

My eyes bore sharply into his, and I detected a familiar glint of attraction. As soon as it appeared, however, it was gone, as if something was holding it back. This never happened before, so I just stared dumbly into those eyes, curious, and perplexing, and I thought, they were just like honey, just like liquid, dripping ho––

“Are you a freshman? Your voice—it gave me chills.”

Blaine Anderson spoke and broke the ludicrous trance I was in, the unexpected question tentative and refreshing, and… _appropriate_ , of all things. I mentally slapped myself, while attempting to throw him off this weirdly convenient track.

“Do I _look_ like a freshman?” I countered. Cocky, but he didn’t have to know he’d hit a bit too close to home. An eternal freshman, wherever I went. No friends to last. Only trysts of convenience and brief acquaintances, lost as easily as they were gained.

Arrogance did throw Blaine off, if a lack of reply had been anything to go by.

Still, my interest had been piqued and we ended up having coffee in the Dalton commons that day (mine with an obnoxious amount of flirting on the side), and every other day since. And every time our gaze held, there was a glint in those honey eyes that flickered in and out of focus, but nothing more. The only thing I could make Blaine Anderson do was blush. So I gradually settled for just that.

It became oddly gratifying.

I approached Blaine in the hallway without stopping, so we continued down the hall.

“Is everything okay?” Blaine fell into step beside me. “I heard you were sent to the P’s office during French class and no one has seen you since then. Some guys even said you were kicked off the Warblers.” He sounded concerned.

Swell. I forgot how fast information spread in this school. And gossip. The Warblers were supreme gossips.

“Thought you’d check on me then, eh, killer?” I winked. “Wouldn’t want to lose such a . . . nimble member, I imagine.” Blaine looked a bit flushed.

“ _Warbler Sebastian_. . .” he began in his captain tone, the one he used only during the dreariest of council meetings, when there was no other option than dive into conflict, which he always considered to be a last resort.

How very honourable of him.

“Chillax, B. I’m not thrown out of anywhere, especially not the Warblers,” I hurried to assuage the suspicion. I was perfectly fine.

Thrown out of balance, perhaps, but only for a moment. Blink, and you might miss it.

“Good.”

He sounded genuinely relieved.

“And what was the trip to the P’s office about?” Blaine demanded. I raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he added hurriedly, transforming into his polite, chivalrous self in a heartbeat. I turned away to hide a small smile.

It was ridiculous, really, the lengths this boy went to do what was considered appropriate. For example, despite all of my advances and poorly disguised innuendo, it took Blaine nearly two months to actually _confront_ me about it.

_We were having coffee at our usual spot in the Dalton commons and, after a particularly lewd comment involving one of the infamous cheerleaders from our neighbouring school, Blaine could hold it in no longer._

_“Sebastian, can I ask you something?” he voiced it abruptly, as if he was afraid he might change his mind and back out. “Are you–?”_

_“Gay?”_

_I interrupted, finishing the question for him. Perhaps I, too, had been afraid he might change his mind._

_It was a preciously awkward moment, the kind I would have gladly drawn out forever; only, Blaine looked as if he was choking on something, so I decided to put him out of his misery._

_“I like both boys and girls,” I announced. “I like anything that moves, actually. Wiggle your charms at me and I’m yours. Or rather, the other way around.” A wink for good measure. “I think definitions and labels at this age are pointless.”_

_I remember Blaine actually looked worse._

_“Oh, come on,” I huffed. “It’s not like that’s the end of the world! I’m 17. I want to, y’know, live a little,” I concluded with a sip from my coffee cup, while Blaine stared at me incredulously._

_“How is throwing yourself at anyone that comes along ‘living a little’?” he finally managed to voice._

_“Oh, but you see, that’s where you are wrong, killer. I don’t throw myself at anyone. I’m simply. . .” pausing, I looked for a word that abounded just right. “Enticing.” I smiled exaggeratedly._

_“You really think definitions are pointless?” Blaine asked. I nodded._

_“Sure. Nobody tells me what to do.” That actually sounded better and less self-entitled in my head._

_“You’re so out there,” Blaine eventually shook his head as if he couldn’t decide on whether this discovery fascinated of horrified him._

It took me a while to understand the issue with ‘being so out there’, as he had then put it, but it became all too clear upon discovering that Blaine himself had been a transfer student a year ago. A new bee. Transferred under traumatic circumstances which involved labels and definitions. I also learned that, despite it all, Blaine was actually a great supporter of definitions and labels. He thought it made it easier to surpass their limits.

And as for right this moment, I wondered if this was an appropriate subject, since I know Blaine doesn’t like to mention his romantic pursuits and their notoriously bad outcomes.

Well, well, would you look at that? Sebastian Smythe is considering appropriate. The world must be coming to an end.

I turned back to Blaine, who was waiting for an answer.

“You might not like it. But then again,” I mused, “you also _might_ like it, which could be even worse.”

“I’m listening,” he said, quirking his eyebrows. Well, better news first.

“First off, I’m going to miss the next Warbler practice–”

“Wait, you said it had nothing to do with the Warblers,” Blaine started to say, but I continued.

“ – _because_ Mr P. wants me to accompany him on a meeting with Principle Sylvester and the senior class president of our neighbouring institution,” I explained, trying to make it sound super-important, in the hopes it would soften the reaction to what I was about to say next. It worked, Blaine’s mouth popped open into a slack little ‘o’, the kind that made his lips look like a sexy lip-balm advert. Focus, Smythe.

His brow furrowed trying to make sense of the entire thing, and I braced myself.

“He wants me to organise a joint Valentine’s-slash-early spring formal between Dalton and our all-girl neighbours,” I announced in a voice as monotone as possible.

“ _What_?” Blaine stopped in his tracks abruptly to face me with a look of shocked disbelief.

“He wants me to–”

“No! Yes, I heard you, I just– He wants _you_ to organise a _Valentine’s_ Day dance?”

I nodded slowly. “That’s what I just said.”

“Really, he wants _you_ to do it?” He kept emphasizing the pronoun as if he’d just discovered the preposterous word. My eyes narrowed.

“Yes.”

“As in, _you_ , _Sebastian Smythe_?”

“Blaine–”

“The most _un_ -romantic person on the planet?”

“Why, thank you for the vote of confidence,” I joked, but he just went on.

“ _Sebastian Smythe_ , who thinks anything to do with Valentine’s commercialised customs is all kinds of abhorrent, and the mere concept of courting to be a complete waste of time? As in, _Sebastian_ –”

“No, really, Blaine, stop it, your unwavering support is just too much,” I bit out but he didn’t seem to notice as he continued talking over me.

“–the notorious seducer, _I-don’t-believe-in-love-Smythe_?” Blaine’s eyebrows were so high up at this point it made his huge eyes widen impossibly, and his lips were twisting themselves into a smirk.

“Oh, please,” I rolled my eyes and resumed walking.

“What!”

Blaine fell into step with me easily. “You told me that yourself!”

I had. I just didn’t understand why he insisted on it so much.

“I also distinctly remember telling you I am as close to a love-expert as one can be. So why you are acting as if the whole thing is so inconceivable is beyond my comprehension,” keeping pace, I tried to sound offended and not hurt. Love-experts didn’t get hurt. Sebastian Smythe didn’t get hurt.

“Oh. Oh my god.”

Blaine caught my arm, and I turned around to find him suppressing a laugh, but looking guilty as he did so, because his sixth sense of propriety probably told him that a sympathetic expression was more befitting.

“I didn’t realize–” he began to say, but stopped and pursed those ridiculously frisky lips. _Enough with the lips, Smythe_. _Focus_. “Sebastian,” he asked instead, “what did you _do_?”

I didn’t like it when he said my name like that. Like he knew me, knew who I was. Knew _what_ I was. It made me feel all kinds of . . . _responsible_. Ugh.

“Does it _matter_?” I mimicked, looking away. Blaine relented.

“Not really,” he chuckled. “But it’s one hell of a punishment.”

That, I silently agreed on.

* * *

“So, one inappropriate note and the P. decides to put you in charge of a school dance ‘to join our student bodies in celebration of fertility and love’,” Blaine recapitulated as we sat in our spot, coffees in hand.

“Yeah, the Age of Aquarius is closer than we originally thought,” I commented, making him snort into his cup. “I don’t think he realized how much of an actual punishment it could be, otherwise I’d never see the end of it. For one, I doubt he’d let anyone assist me. . . Which reminds me.” I groaned as I recalled Mr P’s words. “How am I ever going to find an assistant?”

Blaine’s eyes narrowed at me over the rim of his coffee cup.

“I’m sure a lot of people would be interested in helping you out. Especially if girls are involved,” he smiled. Fair point. The all-boys school made you a little deprived of human contact with the opposite sex, and this was a real issue for most guys. I should know.

“No, I mean, how on earth am I going to find an assistant who’ll do it all _for_ me?” I explained.

“Seriously?” Blaine spluttered and I shrugged. “Sebastian, you can’t just make people do things _for_ you.”

“Well, I’m in charge of the thing, aren’t I?”

I received an exasperated sigh. “That is not the point. You are supposed to learn something from it.”

_Whatever?_ displayed clearly on my face.

“You could have so much fun organising this thing, though, and all you want is for someone to do it for you. I don’t get it,” sighed Blaine.

“And that’s why it’s _punishment_ to me,” I emphasized, taking a sip of coffee. A sudden thought occurred then.

“Hey, B? I just got an idea.”

“That can’t be good,” Blaine quipped from behind his cup.

“No, no, listen. How about _you_ help me out with the organisation?” I fixed him with a look. “As my assistant.”

“Sebastian,” Blaine’s face turned solemn, “there is no way I am doing this instead of you.”

“Well, I don’t recall _asking_ you to,” I scoffed as if, somehow, his words deeply offended me. “I just thought you’d be kinda perfect for the job.” Wasn’t even a lie, that. His look turned to one of soft confusion. “And, anyway, I know you’re dying to jump at the opportunity, so you’re welcome, Anderson,” I added slyly and winked.

Blaine hesitated. “Only if you promise this is not some secret plan to get it off your back,” he stated firmly.

Our eyes met. I didn’t even try, anymore. Blaine just _would not_ be manipulated as the rest of them.

“I promise.” I meant it, too.

“In that case, I accept your kind offer,” declared Blaine, a grin breaking from his face, clear like a blue sky on a rare winter morning. The kind that makes you realize how much you yearned the sun, when it’s been gone for too long.

We sat in comfortable silence. It was broken all too soon by the sound of Blaine’s phone.

He checked it quickly and gave me an apologetic smile.

“It’s Kurt.” Of course it was Kurt. Who else would dare to break the sacred bubble of peace and quiet we found ourselves in. “I have to get going.”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied absentmindedly.

“But I’ll text you to discuss the meeting, then. Or something.”

“You can swing by tomorrow,” I offered, trying not to sound too eager. “My dad will be out of town.”

He looked like he was sorry to hear that. Why did he always look _sorry_ to hear that?

“I’m afraid I’ll be out of town, too.”

Oh, that’s why.

“I’m spending the weekend in Lima,” Blaine said as he stood up to collect his things, and had the indecency to blush as he did so, not leaving much to my imagination which had no intention of going there in the first place.

Must have been my face, because it seemed as if Blaine wanted to say something else just as his phone pinged again. Annoying.

“Better not keep your boy waiting,” I said, looking pointedly at his phone and giving a push in the desired direction. “God knows he probably has this entire weekend planned from the second you enter his car, courtship, swoons and flowers. All that jazz.”

“Yeah,” Blaine replied with a weak smile. “Sebastian–”

“Don’t worry about me, killer. I’ll be fine,” I employed my finest _don’t-worry-I’ll-be-fine_ smile. I had yet to decide whether this actually worked on Blaine. “I’ll text you the details of our grandiose collaboration sometime tomorrow and I promise to even personally come up with some ideas to discuss.” A warning _ping_ pierced the air once more. Blaine made a face.

“Okay. See you Monday,” he said, and with an excited wave, he sped out the door, leaving me in thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Can’t say I understood the appeal of a so-called romantic relationship. The initial confusion, the gnawing anxiety, the dreary suspense; it always seemed to me like humanity’s most tragic waste of time. All in the name of ‘love’.

_Love_ _. . .?_

The endless rules of courting which could prove disastrous both if taken lightly, or to extremes. Talks about the weather, the flowers. Weren’t there less complicated ways of wasting a life? This one reminded me of a highly stressful game of mine-sweeper. Any move holds the potential to be the last since most people have no idea what they are doing. And for those few who do, well, I always imagined it must, altogether, be an incredibly dull affair. It was for me, in any case.

I thought of Blaine and what _love_ was probably demanding of him right now.

True to my word, I’d spent a magnificent 15 minutes of my very late morning brainstorming ideas for Mr P’s ridiculous redemptive task, and yet, I still had next to no idea what I could personally offer in contribution to one of the most artificial celebrations known to man.

When I mentioned I was a love-expert, I wasn’t lying. Really, I _am_.

And when I say ‘love’, I mean attraction and sex, because there’s no such thing as expertise on _love_ , only an expertise on desire and urges. In reality, most people talk about _that_ when they talk about ‘love’. Otherwise, the whole thing is un-chartable. Hell, I may even go so far as to say there’s no such thing as love, only a push and pull between attraction and aversion towards things.

But that might get me into lovers’ bad books. 

So yeah, I guess I could always make people _jump_ people, throw themselves into someone’s path or avoid some significant others like the plague, but I just didn’t think that sexual themes were what Mr P. had been going for, seeing as I was, in fact, being punished for inadvertent distribution of explicit content. Being a modern-day Cupid sucks.

But mostly, I didn’t think my assistant would approve. And I somehow really, _really_ wanted him to.

_Super-weird, Smythe_.

I couldn’t produce anything constructive on an empty stomach, though. Being a motherless and an only child in an empty house had its perks; however, providing your own sustenance wasn’t one of them. Not to say that mothers were in any way obligated to spend their lives in the kitchen, just that it always seemed to me even the busiest and most estranged of mothers were at some point bound to enquire after their child’s state of satiety. Even my father’s ex-wife tried to feed me, once. But that may not be the best example.

Anyway, I had both a good reason and an opportunity to go out and have brunch somewhere nice. I didn’t mind eating alone; not all company was good company, and I would rather endure none than that which was unsatisfactory. Plus, in the years we moved around so much, I developed a guilty pleasure of frequenting places to just . . . watch people. As they came and went. Imagine their lives. Their desires. As they sat. As they talked, ate, read the newspaper or an occasional book. More often than not, as they stared at their stupid phones. It was a fascinating commotion, something that gave me a sense of familiarity wherever we went. Everywhere, everybody _wanted_.

A familiar youth smirked at me on my way out, his slender form reflected invitingly in our hallway mirror. I paused. Green eyes trailed over a pale face and long neck disappearing under the open collar of a rich mauve shirt. Brownish marks, which some naïve fools may claim were indicative of _beauty_ , lay scattered all over, prominent against fair skin, finding their way down, to join many hidden others which spread over my arms and torso. Some of them resembled freckles, while some looked like regular birthmarks, but I knew what they were. Reminders. Echoes. The evidence of what I’d become.

Branded. With stings of Love.

Suddenly wolfish, I gave my pulchritudinous reflection a mock-salute, before grabbing a coat and stepping out into what little was left of a bright Saturday morning.

* * *

I sat down at The Buzz, the only café in Westerville which also happened to serve decent food.

With its plaited chairs, scattered around petite circular tables hidden under checked tablecloths on the small terrace under a looming canopy above, and a wooden structure with high ceilings, comfy chairs, elegant booths and a beautifully old-fashioned counter inside, the place was a year-round breath of Europe in the dull symmetry of red brick and asphalt. I think the owner might have been French.

It wasn’t teeming with people, but it wasn’t empty, either. There was a lively family of four who were on a road trip, judging by the matching outfits, a generic tour guide laid on their table and the obsessive way in which pictures were being taken.

Two older women, with an air of superior domesticity only locals possessed, were immersed in conversation over croissants and tea in the far end of the room, seated close to a neatly-dressed, grey-haired man who sat at the same spot every single morning for two hours (I had been informed once), doing crossword puzzles and reverently smoking something from a pipe, despite the no-smoking sign placed on the wall behind his back. An obviously hungover guy, somewhere in his mid-thirties, was glued to the barstool, reclining on the countertop in a mopey sort of manner while the barista gave him an occasional sympathetic pat on the arm, as she went about her business.

She was a sweet girl about twenty years old (I never asked, but I’d never seen her in any of the schools, either), who worked at The Buzz ever since we got here. I wandered into the place on one of my aimless strolls around town, and it had been her first week. After infusing the conversation with some snippets of French, and thus indulging her secret fantasy of being seduced by a mysterious Frenchman, I became a welcome appearance at The Buzz. She liked me (I could tell) and I liked the place, so we hit it off right away.

She caught my eye as I chimed myself in and smiled. “I’ll be right with you, Sebastian,” she called.

I raised my arm to acknowledge that, as I made my way across the café.

“Don’t sweat it, Bree. I’ll have the usual,” I called back and plopped down on one of the plush benches.

“You sure?” she asked. I simply nodded and she sent the order for a continental breakfast to the kitchen. Having a ‘usual’ was a good indicator of how often I sat there. And her friendly concern was a good indicator of how often I sat there all by myself.

Bree approached my table sooner than I expected, leaving behind the mopey guy who now looked like he was about to fall off the stool.

“Haven’t seen you around for a while,” she said instead of a greeting.

“Glad to know I am missed,” I replied with a grin, the one I used to make people believe they were the most interesting thing on my mind. Bree beamed.

“Yeah, I’d hate to think you were letting yourself starve,” she said, even as she let her eyes rake over my entire form. I knew she had a thing for lanky guys. Her eyes told me, several times. “Besides, we had another guest who spoke French just the other day. I wish you could have met him,” Bree’s face turned dreamy. “He was so elegant, and refined, and _gorgeous_ . . .”

There was a muffled clang from somewhere in the kitchen and she jumped.

“Sorry, I should be going. I came to warn you we’re a bit understaffed. It’s just me today. Our rating has gone up so it’s been a busy week . . .” she trailed off as the bell chimed and the double door made way for a rowdy-looking group of people, just as the mopey guy swayed precariously to the side. “I swear, I can’t leave him _for_ _five freaking minutes_. Oh, hold on, I’ll be right back,” she clipped in a frustrated manner and sped back to the counter.

“It’s fine.”

I glanced briefly at the newcomers, who chose to settle in the café’s more secluded area. They were in a jovial mood, laughter intermingling with bits of conversation. There was an unusual, _enhanced_ quality to their exuberance– somehow, it set my teeth on edge. One of them raised a hand and Bree hurried to take their orders, after propping Mopey back on the counter. She was back at my table soon, though.

“Here’s something while you wait,” she said, placing a glass of what resembled a fruit cocktail in front of me. “On the house.”

“Bree, I wasn’t going to complain.”

“Well, on me, then,” she sighed, brushing me off. “You looked like you needed a pick-me-up.”

I quirked my eyebrows and received an eye-roll in return.

“ _Please_ , you’ve got ‘down’ written all over you, when you think no one’s lookin’.”

Do I, now? I straightened my posture a bit, defiantly.

“This will detox all the doom and gloom from your mind.”

“Is there alcohol in this?” I eyed the glass and lowered my voice dramatically. “ _You know I’m underage, right?_ ”

“I don’t believe in alcohol, Sebastian,” Bree retorted as if alcohol was indeed a matter of belief, and gave a condescending smile. “Just drink it,” she said, walking away again. 

Smirking, I raised the glass in a mock-toast and gulped down half of its contents. It tasted of lemon and ginger and pineapple, and something _familiar_ else, which I couldn’t quite define. A perfect blend of sweet, sour and spicy. The flavours were incredibly contradictory, and yet they made for a powerful fusion. When my order arrived, I gulped down the rest of it over Quiche and a fruit salad, ignoring the small array of brioches and _puits d'amour_.

I ate in silence, concentrating solely on my meal. For all the joy of people-watching, today it felt an exceptional self-indulgence to ignore everyone for the sake of food. Chewing slowly, I caught an occasional chatterbox comment from the Road-trippers’ children who rarely ceased talking, excited on whatever was currently happening in their little universes. Generally, I liked children. My eyes didn’t have to pierce the depths of theirs to know what they wanted. Children were always vocal about their desires and had no problem acting on them.

I took my time. What was there to rush back to, really? An empty house?

Remembering my failed invitation, I realized it had been the first time I had ever truly extended it to someone. We moved around so much that by the time I finally made some friends, usually I no longer had a place to invite them _to_. At least I had a place _and_ a friend, this time around.

I had a friend. I think. How unexpected.

Can’t say I could have made a better choice. Even though he had refused.

“Have I yet to see my concoction’s cheering impacts?” Bree sneaked up on me, taking away empty plates and snapping me out of my reverie. I opened my mouth to place a coffee order, since I’d never been a fan of the standard drip, but she proceeded to set a shot of _doppio_ on the table in front of me. I gave her a puzzled look.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “That pretty little brooding face of yours must have made an impression, because the lady in the back sends her regards.” Bree inclined her head towards the part she was referring to. “You’re lucky it came out, the espresso machine was malfunctioning earlier this morning.”

“What lady in the back?” I craned my neck to get a better look, thinking maybe it was one of the two Locals. I didn’t actually _know_ them, so that would be super-strange. “Who?” I didn’t notice anyone else when I came.

“I don’t know her, and I didn’t get a proper look,” Bree shrugged. “She had some sort of hat on.” She was about to leave, but then she suddenly remembered to place a small object next to my cup. “Here. She said you might like to try something different. Apparently, it’s all the rage where the woman comes from.” She shrugged again, hurriedly leaving for the counter as Mopey began to show signs of falling off the stool once more.

Curious and more than a little confused, my eyes were drawn to the mysterious object, the initial curiosity instantly morphing into apprehension when I discovered it was a small package of–

“Honey.”


	5. Chapter 5

“ _Honey_.”

I didn’t hear her slide into the empty seat on the opposite side of me. My eyes dragged upwards ever so slowly, over the tips of finely manicured nails, over the pale curves of delicate arms, over the ends of glossy strands that spread like a black silk curtain over bony shoulders.

“I should have known.”

A slow smile crept onto salmon pink lips which met my gaze, as my eyes did not venture higher yet. I never liked that smile. It made me feel like I was at a constant state of disadvantage.

“What are you doing here, Melissa?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible, regardless of the fact that I probably never felt less like it in my entire life. In an attempt to enforce this charade, my eyes finally locked with hers, my stomach doing a sickening little leap.

Melissa’s eyes were pools of darkness seeping into my very soul, rooting me to the spot. And although she’d never been as good as I was, a part of me feared that with a single look she could learn all that I ever wanted, or all that I wanted since we parted ways, which was even worse. Catching up always brought control issues along with it in our family.

She clicked her tongue and broke eye-contact with a sigh – an annoyed one, I hoped.

“You’ve easily out-grown me,” she commented upon giving me a meticulous once-over. Her face was framed by a wide-brimmed, extravagant piece of headwear, completely black, save for two saffron stripes which travelled around the brim and made it pop out. A voluminous bunch of little hexagon-shaped flowers crowded the right side of her hat.

“What do you want?” It may have been a bad move to let her know what good had nearly two years of practice done to my psychic abilities.

“Really, now. Is that any way to greet your long-absent, loving mother?”

“You’re not my mother,” I gritted out.

“You wound me, honey.” A hand was pressed to her chest; a combination of words and actions I would have once taken into consideration. Now, I just stared, unmoving. “I have to say, though,” Melissa continued slyly, “I quite like this new . . . _debonair_ you.”

The woman had a way of making flattering words sound like anything but. I set my ‘debonair’ jaw.

“What. Do. You. _Want_.”

I repeated, starting to sound like a broken record.

“To catch up,” she replied innocently and all too promptly for anyone’s taste. “Your little bartender friend is cute.”

It figured. Melissa was a dangerous, stalking shape-shifter and I suddenly had an idea who Bree’s _elegant and refined and gorgeous_ French guy had been.

“How did you get here? How did you know where to find us?” I fired questions like the defensive missiles they were. “How did you even know I was going to be here today?”

“Oh, like that’s of any importance! Aren’t you excited that we can finally spend some time together?” She tried to grab my hand across the table, but I flinched away from her touch.

“ _How?_ ”

“I’m good at tracking.”

I scoffed – it had taken her nearly two years. She recognized the gesture for what it was and leered menacingly.

“Yes, your father had it all planned out better than I gave him credit for. Still, here I am,” she concluded smugly. “And how is your darling daddy, anyway?”

“Stay _away_ from my–”

“Oh, keep your sting on, I’m not here for your ridiculous father!” She held my gaze and her dark eyes gleamed. “I’m here to catch up with _you_. I missed you, my beautiful boy.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Really, honey? Not even a little bit?” she pouted. “I really did miss you.”

I glared.

“Not even after I’ve come all this way to enjoy the company of my exceptional son?”

I glared harder and she dropped the pout, along with most of her act.

“Fine, Sebastian. I can see you’re in a foul mood today. Lucky for you, I plan to stick around.” She glanced at my untasted cup of coffee. “Oh, and absolutely do try adding some honey, now that you’re old enough to drink it.” She slid out of her seat and one long, manicured finger touched my skin where the neck met the shoulder briefly, before I could lean away. “It works wonders for the taste.”

And then she was leaving, the clinking sound of little bells seeing her out, as my eyes followed her retreating figure, until she was completely out of sight.

* * *

The walk home was a slightly distracted affair, and by that I mean a complete train-wreck of putting one foot in front of the other while I was too bewildered to remember the shortest way back to my house.

She was here.

Melissa found us and she was _here_ , in town, demanding to ‘catch up’. She knew we settled here. She somehow knew where I was going to be today and when. She knew I took coffee instead of whatever else. She knew _how_ I took it.

I knew what ‘catching up’ meant. It meant her taking control of my life once again and making me do things she proclaimed my sacred duty. It meant a sacrifice for the Queen in the end. Dying for the hive. And it was something I was _not_ intending to do.

You know the stories they told you about ancient goddesses of love? About a magnificent creature who could play with human lives manipulating their desires? All true. Oshun, Anansa, Samedi, Min, Astarte, Ishtar, Morrigan, Freya, Bastet, Rati, Tu Shen, Ichpochtli, Lada, Kuni, Venus, Aphrodite . . . Melissa. I don’t know half of her names, but whatever you wanted to call her, she was always there. She had countless forms in countless cultures, and this was the one I knew. And, well, loved, sometime a youth ago.

How could I have not? She had picked me as her own and blessedly, I had belonged for the tiniest period of time. Then she left her marks for the world to see.

Told me I had a duty now, and that it was sacred.

Panic closed its petty hands around my throat as I struggled to keep my pace without either falling over or breaking off into a run. The thought of Melissa’s proximity made me want to get back home as soon as possible. I felt like I was being watched, and wanted nothing more than to hide.

Even though she probably knew where we lived, already.

By the time I finally reached the front door, my thoughts were completely scattered. What exactly did she want with us? With me? How much did she know about our lives here? What would be her next move? Should I warn dad about her? Or keep it to myself, and see how things go?

Momentarily, I remembered my dad’s hopeful face when we made it through our first week in this place. “This is going to be a good one, Seb,” he’d said. “I can feel it.”

There was a pang in my chest as I considered the look on his face when he’d reason we have to, once again, leave it all behind, after I told him. _Again with the consideration, Smythe_.

Dad’s life with Mel was a thing he left behind, at the Old Place. A sort of thing he was never coming back for, that much he’d made clear. But maybe it wasn’t so much out of consideration as for selfish reasons that a treacherous voice somewhere within begged me to stay here, rather than make sure we pack our bags ASAP; a voice which prompted me to keep my mouth shut and hope for her to go away.

Due to some strange, unexpected reason, this god-forsaken place was somewhere I was actually starting to like living in. It wasn’t as good as Paris – nothing will _ever_ be as good as Paris – but it made me, for the first time since, want to stay put.

Melissa was a dangerous creature, but I didn’t want to leave. This colony felt mine.


	6. Chapter 6

_It was a wide, grassy plain._

_The luscious sea of green swayed smoothly under a cerulean sky. There were daisies, and poppies, and baby blue eyes and golden celandines, and cornflowers and foxglove, and bright clover, and mallows and marjoram, and towering scabious, and thistle and weird eryngo, and knapweed, and fleabane and yarrow, and thyme. They all danced brightly in the warm breeze._

_A lone figure lay in the grass, sprawled on his back. Velvety blades caressed the fair skin of the boy’s long limbs, and green eyes followed the steady glide of the clouds above. The meadow’s tender softness was all-encompassing. He was more than this earth, and less than a tiniest earth-worm. He was everywhere, and nowhere but that exact spot. Everything belonged to him and he belonged to everything._

_He closed his eyes._

_He could taste the flowers and he could hear the grass, and he could feel the texture of the sky. In his mind’s eye, he could see the meadow from every angle, all at once._

_The sky then turned a darker shade of blue, up to the point where it was a curious, undetermined kaleidoscope of colour, as if each ray of sunlight had its own idea of what to paint the sky. The meadow was an eerie duplicate of its previous self – the same image put through a different filter. A rainbow of bright patterns hugged by the darkness of the ultraviolet spectrum, a vegetal film noir, and fluorescence dunked in infinite shades of blue, and greenish, sombre yellow, and all kinds of purple. Each colour had a dark vibrancy which hurt the eyes._

_There was buzzing coming from a distance. He could feel it more than hear it, invading his mind more than his ears. The buzzing was getting closer. He wanted to hide but knew there was no escape. The open field left no cover. He couldn’t run. It was getting louder, closer. He **wouldn’t** run. So close now, as if it burned under his own skin, and he became its source– _

I regained consciousness acutely aware of a dull pain in the back of my neck, which made its presence known the second I stirred from my unnatural position on the couch.

_Buzzing_.

My butt was buzzing. Then it wasn’t.

Painfully perceptive of my neck, arching up a bit, I fished my phone out from where it lay entrapped between my lower back and the couch. Two missed calls from Blaine, preceded by several text messages from, also, Blaine.

I had a moment of panic at the prospect of something horrible happening, of _her_ somehow finding out all about Blaine and seeking him out just to show me that she can – but then I remembered Blaine was with Kurt in Lima, and never had I ever thought there’d come a day when that would be a piece of information to bring me relief.

The said relief was, however, squashed immediately as I noticed how dark it’d got outside. Who in their right mind sleeps through an entire afternoon without so much as a stir? Somehow I doubted I even locked the front door after I came in.

Dad didn’t call. But then again, he never really called unnecessarily. _Pas_ _de nouvelles_ , that was his moto. I would have probably had more reason to worry if he had called.

I checked my messages. 

**08:56 AM From: B**

_Hope you’re up for brainstorming, because I’ve just had some ideas!_

**09:02 AM From: B**

_After you’ve, you know. Opened your eyes. Done stuff._

**09:05 AM From: B**

_I mean, just, whenever you’re awake. OK, ignore these._

**09:06 AM From: B**

_Oh, and good morning Sebastian. :)_

Judging by the time, it looked like Blaine had _woken up_ brainstorming. I realized I didn’t bother to actually check my phone today at all. Although, those might have been too early for me to register, anyway.

I scrolled on.

**11:55 AM From: B**

_We’re off for lunch, but text me! I’m open for discussion. ;)_

Not sure Kurt would have liked that. Such a shame I didn’t see this in time to annoy the hell out of his romantic lunch.

**02:27 PM From: B**

_Whenever you’re ready…?_

**04:55 PM From** : **B**

_Seb, it’s been the whole afternoon… Did you conveniently happen to forget all about this?_

I scoffed at the screen.

**04:56 PM From: B**

_Like, on purpose??_

Oh, I wish.

**05:10 PM From: B**

_WARBLER SEBASTIAN, if you are purposefully ignoring my messages in order to make me talk myself through organizing this thing on my own, you have another thing coming. Because, I repeat, I AM NOT doing it for you. Suck it up._

Uh-oh. Captain Blaine. Smirking, I remembered the highly productive 15 minutes I spent on the matter this morning. He should be proud.

**06:59 PM From: B**

_Srsly tho, where are you? Everything ok?_

**07:24 PM From: B**

_Sebastian, please answer me. I’m getting worried._

It was always great fun, observing the gradual changes in tone, a fascinating feature which could make a simple thought resonate in so many different ways. I must have become an expert on the nuances of Blaine’s tone somewhere along the way, seeing as how I was able to hear each word as clearly as if he’d been speaking them to me directly.

It was nearing 9 PM, or so the tiny clock in the right hand corner suggested. Not too late to put Blaine’s mind at ease. Mine too, for that matter.

There was barely a ring and a both urgent and relieved voice answered the call, as if they were sitting by the phone all day, waiting for it to ring.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” I said in way of greeting. “And I didn’t forget about it, I just, I–”

Pausing my immediate justification, I attempted and failed to come up with a more elegant description of the event which took place. “I fell asleep.”

It came out somewhat lamely. And unlikely, might I add.

“ _Oh_.” 

I waited for some sort of inevitable comment, already picturing Blaine’s smugness, no doubt, at the prospect of Sebastian Smythe just hanging on the couch and falling asleep on a Saturday afternoon like a regular guy, and expecting it to involve something about me being human after all, but nothing came, except a quiet reply.

“ _Okay_.”

This was not okay.

“Blaine, what’s the matter?”

A shaky breath was taken on the other side of the line, followed by what was probably a moment of artificial mood-boosting process, and Blaine responded in fake cheer.

“ _Nothing’s the matter, it’s just late. Some of us weren’t sleeping the day away, you know_.”

I suppressed the urge to scoff. Fascinating as it was how often Blaine did this, feigning a cheery disposition in the moment when cheery was the farthest from his person it could possibly be, he would have to try harder than _that_ to ensnare me into one of his fake moods. Having inadvertently become an expert on the nuances of his expression, any sound or phrasing that came out of that boy’s mouth had my undivided attention, because staring into his eyes never _ever_ worked with Blaine, not like it did with the rest of the human population. That being said, a half-hearted mumble over the phone wasn’t going to cut it.

“ _Blaine, who is that?_ ” came a high-pitched voice from somewhere close by, but also far away.

“ _Look, I have to go_ ,” Blaine muttered.

“What, time for a rigorous skin-slapping regiment?” I asked just to be spiteful; frustrated, as always, by Kurt Hummel’s impeccable timing. Blaine sighed.

“ _I’m glad you called, Sebastian. Thank you_.”

And the line went dead, along with my hopes of getting what was bothering him out of Blaine. Sighing, I looked down at my rumpled shirt and pants which now felt increasingly itchy and uncomfortable, having been slept in.

Somehow, my mind felt equally rumpled.


	7. Chapter 7

_A chill wind was blowing._

_It lifted off the ground the dull echoes of winter, rousing spring in its wake._

_I rode on its back, a swirling creature, volatile and free._

_On my course, it took me, in the swift trill of wings, wind-oars slicing through a world of blue and green._

_The scent, carry the message. Carry the scent. Carry the duty._

_He was near._

_The Source was near._

** _**YOU HAVE NO NEW MESSAGES**_ **

My eyes tore away from the offending piece of technology for the umpteenth time.

“Heads up!”

This time I raised my head, in time to notice a flying object and deflect it from crashing flat into my face.

“Dad! _Ow_ ,” I remarked, pointedly rubbing my forearm and glancing down at the rectangular missile which plopped beside me onto the couch. A book. 

“The one you’ve been nagging me about. She found it,” dad said, fondness and pride finding their way to the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“That’s great,” I acknowledged the book and went back to checking my phone. “Tell her I said thanks.”

Dad frowned his annoyed-yet-confused frown. I didn’t need to check to know that.

“Everything ok with you, Seb? You seem a little distracted.” He approached the couch and leaned casually on the armrest. “Is it school?”

“School’s fine.”

“Is it…” he trailed off with that face plastered on, the one which appeared with my dad’s every tentative attempt to understand his hypersexual son’s excessive _love life_ , as he called it. I found it hilarious, but dad had always been a hopeless romantic.

I raised my eyebrows questioningly, and his expression took a slightly pained turn. Or maybe, his face had something to do with having to deal with a teenager. Parents’ faces did that.

I offered a reassuring smile. Much as I enjoyed to see people squirm, my dad was one of the few who deserved to be let off the hook. His concern was always genuine.

“Nothing to worry about, dad.”

Already I’d decided against informing him of Melissa’s reappearance. He didn’t need that kind of shit in his life right now. He had a good thing going on with the local librarian, Emma. Emma was decent. She loved books, and bees and mythology and a bunch of other stuff my dad liked. Most importantly, I think she genuinely cared for my dad. Some people were capable of that, regardless of their strong desires. Besides, Melissa said she’d come for me, not him. And as long as I could keep whatever business she had with me away from my dad’s new life, things were cool.

So, yeah. Nothing to worry about, dad. _Pas de nouvelles_.

Dad looked unconvinced.

“Ok, if you say so.” He paused and I felt a hand land gently on my shoulder. “You know you can talk to me about things, right?”

“Even if it’s something you can’t do anything about?”

I looked up at him and saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

“ _Especially_ if it’s something I can’t do anything about,” he replied.

We measured each other up, all friendly smiles. There were many things I could say.

_Melissa’s back_.

_My friend Blaine’s been acting weird. I don’t know why I care_. _It’s not like I have friends._

_I’ve been acting weird, around Blaine, and it’s terribly annoying because I don’t_ do _weird, dad_.

_I’m being punished into organizing a school dance in compensation for what would otherwise most certainly have been suspension_.

My lips decided on forming the last one, minus the suspension remark. I didn’t think dad would be particularly intrigued by that part. Things had been going so well, lately.

“There’s this thing,” I began, mincing my words along the way. “It’s a dance – well, sort of – and I’m supposed to, uh, plan it?” I made it sound like a question. Dad said nothing. Sliding onto the couch next to me, he merely raised his eyebrows in a way which reminded me of myself. “Only, it’s supposed to be a theme party, and I don’t have a theme.” He nodded.

“Also, there’s this– this guy who’s assisting me.”

I paused briefly, stumbling over Blaine’s name for reasons unknown. Dad didn’t know anything about Blaine since I never introduced any of my friends, partly due to the fact that I didn’t have any, and partly because I never brought anyone home. Ever.

“We were supposed to do some brainstorming together but I haven’t heard from him for a while.” I shrugged somewhat dejectedly.

“Is that the reason you keep staring at your phone like you expect it to come to life and make amends to you personally?”

“Very funny.”

He made a defensive gesture. “Hey, don’t shoot the independent observer. The way I see it, this is the most intensely focused I’ve ever seen you within a 24-hour period, and the only _trouble_ you’re getting into is waiting by the phone.” He shrugged. “Heck, you should give me the guy’s number so I can thank him in person.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Hilarious, dad.”

Despite my dry tone of reply, I felt a soft lurch somewhere in my chest at the thought of dad and Blaine talking, and something warm and golden seemed to blossom in my belly. _When did you turn so incredibly sappy, Smythe?_ I shook myself slightly to get the strange feeling out.

“Anyway, there’s a meeting to discuss the whole thing tomorrow, and I don’t have anything to offer,” I said. Dad looked thoughtful.

“When’s the event?” he asked.

“February 14th.”

“Isn’t that a theme in itself?” he frowned.

I snorted.

“I _wish_.”

“Well. Whatever you decide upon, just remember this– Valentine’s Day is a couples’ affair.”

Yeah, like I needed reminding.

Dad got up.

“I’m making potatoes dauphinoise for dinner. Give me a hand? Your phone deserves a break from the death glare,” he quipped while I rolled my eyes, heavy on theatricality, but conceded. “Oh, and do me a favour before we start, go check the shed, would you?” he said, pausing halfway to the kitchen. “There might be a storm tonight, and I don’t want tomorrow morning to be another episode of _The Crocodile Hunter_ ,” he added referring to the last time we accidentally left the garden shed door open on a stormy night, and had to make our way through both flood and all kinds of wildlife. I nodded and he made his way to the kitchen.

“Hey, dad?” I called. He turned around; eyes open, heart open.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

* * *

Outside, the evening was fresh and the air held a flavour of an impending storm.

A chill wind was blowing.

I made my way towards the tool shed across the lawn. The sun had already sunk low beneath the horizon, leaving behind a violet sky and casting shades of bluish darkness upon the world. I had an eerie feeling of being watched.

The shed door stood ajar and, dousing it in yellow light from a single bulb which hung from the ceiling, I took a sweeping peek inside, prepared to evict any stray occupants before they got too comfortable in there. Various tools lay both stacked and scattered alike, filling up the small space along with a set of thick cardboard boxes, some gaping half-empty, some sitting neatly sealed in a corner. There was a broad table in the far end right across the door, under the sole window which took up most of the wall it belonged to. It contained, among else, huge rolls of drawing paper and a few stacks of empty wooden frames which served as paper holders for a piece with an unfinished design on it, spread under an old, squeaky-looking lamp. Strong metal shelves were lined against one of the walls, holding a variety of supplies, gardening tools, and an electric mini-wash with its own removable set of wheels, surrounded by what looked like odd pieces of extremely rusty machinery. Buckets and mops and all sorts of unexpectedly useful things filled the narrow space behind the door and reclined against the other wall, where also hung one very plain jacket, right next to a white one-piece suit with a matching pair of gloves stuck neatly into its back pocket. There was an enormous-brimmed hat, covered in inches of fine net twice its size. It was altogether a pleasant chaos, the kind that resides in a frequently utilized space.

My eyes lingered on the onesie and the hat, which looked out of place. It had been a while since dad made any real use of those, but instead of dumping them like I suggested, he simply carried them wherever we went. If there was one thing, apart from me, that my dad was sure to take on the road or grab out of a burning house, it was his beekeeping get-up.

He knew all too well that bees were not something you could keep if you were constantly on the move. But I figured this was his way of keeping the hope alive; the hope that we might one day actually _settle_ somewhere, without a crazy person on our heels. Not to mention the hope of keeping his sanity.

Keeping one’s sanity seemed a proper task these days.

Slowly, as if approaching a sacred area, I wandered to the table and peered around dad’s honeycomb super frames-turned-paper-holders at what looked like an unfinished drawing showing some sort of advanced queen excluder. Dad had loved his bees; before, he would often talk to them, muttering random bits of news, bits of his day, and whispering secrets he knew only bees would be able to keep. He used to do that even before mom died. I remember she’d gaze at him fondly through the bedroom window when he’d spend entire afternoons deep in our backyard, tending to the bees. _His_ bees. Talking to his bees was what dad missed the most about Old Place, even though he’d never admit it. Making theoretical improvements to imaginary beehives was as good an indication as any.

Devising an advanced queen excluder seemed a bit over the top, though, what with Melissa conveniently turning up in Columbus. That woman could _sense_ anything that was but one hair out of the ordinary, where bees were concerned. We learned that at an early stage of attempting our lives without her, when dad still harboured ambitions of keeping both his bees and a Melissa-free existence.

Careful not to disturb anything else, I rolled the huge sheet and put it away. I stacked the honeycomb super neatly in the corner, because getting them back into that box they came from would take too much time and I was expected to get back. This would have to be enough. As far as dad knew, I’d been suddenly overtaken by one of my OCD moments.

I took one last glance around the shed, turned off the light and, locking the door behind me, stepped out into the garden.

I made my way back to the house.

The feeling of being watched hadn’t gone away.


	8. Chapter 8

The storm seemed to pass us by, somehow.

Again I’d fallen asleep like the dead, then woke up with a pain in my neck and unpleasant prickling in my right wrist in addition to that, not to mention devastatingly late for school. Dad was already gone and he left a note saying he’ll be back later in the afternoon.

What I _wasn’t_ late for, I realised as I ran into Blaine and the Principal on their way to meet the neighbours, was the dreaded meeting. Swell.

“How wonderful of you to join us, Mr Smythe,” Mr P. commented, while Blaine just informed me he’d rescheduled the Warblers’ rehearsal for the day after tomorrow. Any further attempt at conversation was met with only stiff politeness. Feeling desperate, and against my better judgement, I even asked after Kurt-the-ultimate-boyfriend-Hummel. Blaine suddenly found some interesting topics to discuss with the Principal, after that.

The meeting had gone, for lack of other words, unexpectedly.

We were seated in the middle of the school gym, a dull greenish table separating Blaine, Mr P. and me from Principal Sue Sylvester and the two teenage girls seated on the opposite side. Or should I say the _opposing_ side, since it seemed unlikely we would ever come even to a mild form of understanding, let alone agree on something.

Principal Sylvester was an abnormally tall woman with sharp eyes and an air of being in charge of the Universe itself. Brittany S. Pierce seemed like a sweet yet simple girl, or whatever you’d call someone with a neatly done French braid and the logic of a six-year-old, whose plain school uniform gave no indication of flower power (like I half-expected would be the case). She also seemed too honest to mess with, which reminded me of Blaine, actually, but impressionable enough for me to sway my way if the occasion called for it. Her assistant, on the other hand – for Brittany had obviously been assigned one, as well – was the Devil incarnated. Sleek hair was pulled back in a long, swishy ponytail which cascaded down from the very top of her head, while she reclined against her chair in a relaxed manner of a seemingly disinterested wildcat ready to pounce at any given moment. Her eyes were two endless dark pools, _not unlike Melissa’s_ , I noticed for the first time. But where Melissa’s stare and demeanour were stone cold, this girl might have been spitting fire. Her glares she sent my way were flaming arrows.

As for me, being on the receiving end of the sleek dragon-cat girl’s glares wasn’t the worst of it. _My_ assistant wasn’t really speaking to me, and I had yet to discover why, even though he’d been nothing but polite ever since we laid eyes on each other that morning. This was especially torturous, seeing as Blaine was polite to everyone by default – and suddenly going out of his way to keep it up whenever our communication verged into unstable territory made me want to handle things in a _very_ impolite manner. I wasn’t everyone, thank you very much, and I wasn’t planning on joining their ranks any time soon.

In addition to that, I had nothing insightful to remark concerning the blasted thing, and Mr P. was making increasingly bad jokes, while Sue Sylvester just stood there, smirking creepily and resembling a large fox who accidentally discovered a flock of particularly plump hens. As if meeting in the middle of an empty school gym wasn’t creepy enough.

Even creepier was the pain in my wrist, which had progressed since this morning and the area was burning by now. This didn’t help in the slightest, and I tried to put it out of my mind.

We were slowly reaching a point where we’d be bound to accept Brittany’s initial proposition of ‘Dinosaurs’.

I didn’t really care, but Blaine wasn’t especially keen on voicing his opinions, either, and he never so much as looked at me since we stepped into that gym. I had a feeling that saying “yeah, dinosaurs, whatever, let’s get it over with” wasn’t going to capture his attention in a good way. And I also had a feeling that whatever I did would only be a small contribution to a bigger problem.

You see? That, right there, was the perpetual issue with romantic relationships, those ultimate freaks of nature, bred in an environment of complicated courting cycles. They always left some space for expectation, and quite often of the unrealistic kind.

People expected and expected, clinging to what someone thought _ought_ _to_ be done and expertly ignoring what _could_ be done. No wonder most of them spent their lives trapped in some form of lovesick misery. Very few voiced their desires, and even fewer did so on a regular basis.

Blaine was most likely moping because his self-absorbed boyfriend probably expected high-coded romantic gestures left and right, and the ones he’d been receiving so far didn’t live up to his expectations. Or maybe it was the other way around, what with Blaine being a bit stuck on what he deemed customary protocol. Either way, it was expectations.

Expectations, always and everywhere.

I don’t know what Blaine expected _me_ to do about his current state of mind, though. Whatever relationship issues him and Kurt-the-ultimate-boyfriend-Hummel had tangled themselves into was absolutely none of my business; they were just another drop in the uninteresting, endless, _boring_ historical ocean of–

“Couples!”

I blurted the word out abruptly, gluing five startled pairs of eyes to my face. Mr P. broke off in the middle of another joke, for which everyone was secretly grateful. 

I cleared my throat.

“Valentine’s Day is a couples’ affair,” I used the phrase which unexpectedly came to mind and opened a myriad of possibilities. Principal Sue Sylvester was the first to reply.

“Unless you were a complete loser who couldn’t get another whiny teenager on a date if his life depended on it, then yes, it’s likely to be a couples’ affair. Your point, Cabana boy?”

“So, people will attend as couples. Or _in_ couples, at the very least.”

“Obviously.”

“ _Is_ there a point to this particular bit of reasoning, Mr Smythe?” Mr P. asked, while Brittany S. Pierce followed with mild interest. Her assistant was watching me as if she was witnessing a particularly interesting live demonstration of brain removal.

“What I’m trying to say is, we could make it _literally_ a couples’ affair. As in, make famous romantic couples our theme,” I explained, keeping a straight face and miraculously managing not to gag on the word ‘romantic’. “And even if some complete loser happens to arrive alone,” I gave Sue Sylvester a pointed look, “they may come across their better half. So to speak. History offers its fair share of star-crossed lovers.”

I risked a glance to my right and saw that my assistant was now openly gaping at me, incredulous, and sporting an expression of shock which was on its way to becoming an open-mouthed grin.

Like, finally. _Now_ he looks at me.

Sue Sylvester looked like she’d been forced to swallow something incredibly sour, while the dragon-cat girl made no comment in protest to the suggestion, seeing as Brittany seemed just as entranced by the idea as Blaine was. _So you secretly like it_ , I thought, raising an eyebrow at her. She glared.

“Excellent idea, Mr Smythe!” exclaimed Mr P. “I’m sure you and Miss Pierce will make wonderful hosts,” he added, glancing from Brittany to me.

“Oh, I don’t–” I started to say at the same time as dragon-cat girl hissed “ _What?_ ”, turning to Principal Sylvester in outrage. It was the first thing she said since the meeting had started.

“I thought _we_ were hosting the event, since _we’re in charge of it_ ,” she hissed at her Principal some more.

“Excuse me?” _In what of it?_

“You’re excused,” dragon-cat assistant spat out venomously, not taking her eyes off Sylvester. Blaine tried to muffle a snigger, which I took as a personal insult because that line was just lame. I glared at the she-Devil.

“Seeing as we already have the advantage of home court,” Sue Sylvester intervened, sensing things could quickly take an uncivilized turn, “I believe what my colleague here is suggesting is quite reasonable, Lopez. Otherwise, it would hardly be considered collaboration.”

“I don’t mind, Santana,” said the other one, touching Santana’s arm to get her attention. As if her issue had been Brittany, and not me. I couldn’t prevent smiling at her naïve, childlike manner, and even the dragon-cat girl’s expression lost its edge. It quickly returned, tenfold, as she went back to glaring at me in silence.

The meeting ended very soon after that, a now much more talkative Blaine tentatively offering another session to a very accepting Brittany, while our Principals lingered to discuss some school policy on the way out. Santana Lopez stalked away in the direction of the school yard.

“Wait for me outside, be right back,” I said to Blaine who was standing by the entrance with Brittany S. Pierce, now deep in discussion about complementary qualities of dinosaurs and unicorns, and who just waved me away.

I made my way outside, and took a turn, soon reaching a secluded little spot which might be easily missed if you didn’t know what to look for. It also gave an excellent view of the front building.

A sleek haired girl was just about to light a cigarette, when my sudden appearance made her jump and drop her lighter.

“Fuck _—_ _Jesus Christ_ , Smythe.”

“Here, let me get that,” I said, picking up the lighter and offering a light. She raised her eyebrows but shrugged and took it.

“You’ve got some nerve, homeboy,” she said, drag first, words second.

“Says the girl smoking on school grounds.”

Santana Lopez glared at me. “They’re _my_ school grounds.”

“Where do you even keep those?” I commented, giving her an off-hand once-over.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she replied. Her face then turned business-like.

“Look, Smythe. We both want this to work, so here’s what I suggest. We let my girl Britt take over and do what she does best—” and judging by her tone, it sounded like, in Santana’s opinion, the list of things which Brittany _didn’t_ do best was, indeed, very short “—and no harm, no foul.” She blew out some smoke. “Look at it this way. Your hobbit gets a field day, and you get your CV filled with glorious communal purpose, or whatever the actual reason you’re involved.”

Well. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her the _actual_ reason had been punishment.

“Oh, I think Brittany and I will get along just _fine_ ,” I purred and watched her take another drag, while throwing an internal fit.

Based on one of our previous . . . _encounters_ , and from what I gathered during that meeting, Santana Lopez was the kind of person who took no sentimental nonsense from life and dealt with most things in a purely physical way. This in no way meant she didn’t know how to throw a mean insult or an even meaner argument; however, being in tune with her physicality made her act very fast. Any more divine power, and she would be me. Knowing how to press other people’s weak points, her boat was an amazingly hard one to rock. Which, naturally, made me want to rock it all the harder.

It felt like testing my own limits, in a way.

“Stay away from Brittany,” she said evenly, moving into my space just a fraction. “Or I _will_ end you, Sebastian.” It was clear she did mean it, even as it was clear she had absolutely no idea how. Fascinating, how people worked.

“You’ve got spunk, Lopez. I always liked that about you,” I steered away conversationally.

“Oh, the spunk was – and still is – all yours,” she countered, putting out her cigarette. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“Still, to think that this time we could have been doing it up against that wall. . .”

“I don’t think I hate you enough to do it a second time.” She smirked. “What, no walls available on your own school grounds?”

My eyes searched the distance, on a whim. Obviously this meant something to her because she leered.

“Oh, I see. No willing participants.”

I smirked, even though it didn’t feel quite right, and reached into a pocket.

“Mint?” I asked, fingers closing around a small tin box. “I figure you’ll be needing one. . . Oh, but there’s only one left.” I shrugged and popped it into my own mouth. “Guess we’ll have to share.” I smiled sweetly.

“Who knew you had a thing for obnoxiously sentimental, undergrown curlyheads who also appeared to be already floating into a happily ever after with their unrealistic-but-oh-so-true love?” Santana clicked her tongue in an irritating way, looking pointedly to where Blaine was standing with Brittany on the main steps, chattering away.

“I do not have a _thing_ ,” I huffed. “ _People_ have things, and I’m – I’m not—people.”

“Yeah,” Santana replied, her eyes absently darting back to the steps for the briefest of intervals. “Me neither.”

Suddenly, she pounced and grabbed me by the collar, clashing our lips together and sucking the mint straight out of my mouth into her own in a rather violent manner, leaving a strange metallic taste behind.

“ _Stay away from Brittany_.”

And with that, she made her way past me, heading for where Blaine and Brittany were standing on the steps.

That was enough boat-rocking for today.


	9. Chapter 9

Turns out, it wasn’t.

“What kept you?” Blaine seemingly returned to his friendly warm self as we walked back to our school grounds. “Brittany and I agreed we’d have another meeting two days from now so we can practice our set-list before Saturday.”

Oh, so the Warblers were going to sing. I just hoped there’d be a band. The exciting prospect of singing love songs all evening long must have shown on my face.

“Don’t worry, there’ll be a band.” I just nodded and we kept on walking side by side. “So. I really liked your idea back there.” I smirked.

“I could tell, killer. And I totally didn’t come up with that on the spot,” I joked, and then decided to bite the bullet. “How was your weekend?”

It was fascinating to see Blaine’s face morph from excited to anxious in 0.2 seconds.

“Can we not talk about that?”

“Why, did something happen?”

He just walked on. I didn’t even know why it was so important to me to find out what was wrong – because something clearly had been wrong from that phone call on. It was funny really. Clearly something had gone wrong with Kurt, and I had this borderline pathological need to find out what. Because Kurt had been the ‘ideal’ boyfriend in Blaine’s eyes from day one, and I knew, I just _knew_ there was no such thing. I’d never even seen Kurt Hummel with my own two eyes and I knew all about Blaine’s romantic history, from gay bashing at a school dance which prompted him to change schools up to his every ridiculous attempts to seduce a guy by putting himself out there, heart and soul, even if it were lame crushes like that guy at GAP, or even stunts that had me questioning his sanity, like that time when he was trying to be a considerate sweetheart and I had to, not so considerately, turn Trent down _for_ him after one too many an awkward Warbler practice. Blaine didn’t know about that last one, even though he seemed relieved that the overly-enthusiastic advances stopped.

Like I said, the Warblers worshipped Blaine and the ground he walked on. He was their Queen Bee and an oblivious one at that. Even straight pretty boys like Thad Hardwood, who otherwise had no desire to engage in bi-curious explorations whatsoever (and I had poked and prodded and most definitely tried), were ready to fall at his feet. If I were in Blaine’s place for, like, a day . . . Oh, boy. But I wasn’t aiming for that and Blaine was a good leader, even if he didn’t completely realize his worth.

I had a sudden idea.

“What do you say we ditch school today?”

“What?” Blaine looked at me like I’d grown another arm. “We can’t—it’s Monday morning, Sebastian! We have, like, four more periods.”

“Well, yeah, but we have, like, PE and then you have a free period and something boring after that, and I have French, which I can totally do without.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m just not feeling all that well . . .” I began, and Blaine shook his head, exasperated. “I think I might head home . . . lie down. . .”

“I can _not_ believe this,” Blaine said. “You didn’t even arrive in time for the first period.”

“I didn’t hear a ‘no’.” Blaine just rolled his eyes. “C’mon, killer. Play hooky with me. We’ll say it was for the sake of joining our student bodies in celebration of fertility and love. My treat.”

“You’re awful,” he said but looked better than he did a minute ago.

“You love it.”

*

“I . . . don’t _hate_ it, I guess.”

We were sitting at The Buzz, outside in the glowing sun. It was nearing midday but it wasn’t lunch hour yet, so the place wasn’t teeming with patrons. I decided Blaine needed a pick me up and if there was one dessert at The Buzz worth selling your soul over, it was their honey cake.

“You can’t mean that! Everybody loves their honey cake.”

Blaine shrugged and pushed the plate of his half-eaten cake away.

“What can I say, it’s not my favourite. The coffee’s good, though,” he added as if apologising. 

“The coffee’s _the best_ in Westerville,” I protested and he just smiled into his cup. “Can’t have my assistant falling asleep on the job. Only, don’t drink too much, you’re way more enthusiastic about this project than me, as it is.” Blaine snorted.

“I still can’t believe you came up with that idea. For you, it’s downright _maudlin_ ,” he spoke the off-hand comment into his coffee. “Hey, what songs do you think we should—”

“What do you mean, maudlin?” I frowned. Just because I didn’t think couples were a thing in real life, doesn’t mean it couldn’t be play-pretend. I never said _that_.

“Well, you know, with your whole _‘I-don’t-do-relationships’_ attitude towards life,” Blaine replied and it stung. “No dates, just meaningless hook-ups. . .”

“What, and I suppose your endless search for perfection is a stellar approach?” I scoffed and Blaine looked a little taken aback, like he didn’t expect that kind of reaction. It just spurred me on. “I suppose the _perfect_ boyfriend who stifles your life into something boring and predictable is the way to go?”

This thing Blaine had going on with Hummel had been gnawing on me all weekend, or probably even longer that, I realised. I wasn’t jealous. Sebastian Smythe didn’t get jealous.

I was. . . I wasn’t jealous. Their supposedly ideal relationship rubbed me the wrong way since day one, and I was finally prepared to give Blaine a piece of my mind. In the middle of the day at a local café. While we were trying to keep a low profile because we were skipping school together.

But I wasn’t jealous.

“Just because I don’t do random hook-ups, my life’s suddenly boring?” Blaine raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t make this about random hook-ups, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“ _Please_ , enlighten me,” Blaine grit out. Bothered. Beautiful.

“ _Oh, Kurt’s so wonderful! Kurt’s so romantic, we do everything together_ in the same stale way since the beginning of our great romantic relationship, and even when I have to stand on my head to have it done right, and therefore be appreciated, it’s all just one big fat love gesture!” I went on in a mocking voice and Blaine followed my performance with an open mouth. “Just _thinking_ about the amount of time you need to spend on coordinated displays of affection makes me want to die. It’s tiresome. _Who_ would want that? It’s boring.”

“Love’s not boring!” Blaine said hotly. “You have fun with them. You can talk to them, you can sit in silence. They don’t ask questions, they accept you. When they do ask, they help you grow. They make you better want to be better, the best version of yourself, whatever that may be. That’s what love is. Not the poems and the customs and conventional phrasing and customs and flowers on Valentine’s Day.” I laughed without humour.

“I think that’s what you like to tell yourself. That’s the ideal you’d like to believe in. But guess what? There’s no such thing,” I concluded. When had my words started tasting so bitter? Blaine crossed his arms in a self-preservation gesture.

“And I think that that’s what _you_ like to tell yourself,” he countered. “Because you’re afraid it might mean something.”

“Oh, I _mean_ the things I say,” I leaned back in my chair. “But unlike me, people say one thing when they want to do another. They _pretend_. And adhering to specific codes of behaviour helps them keep it up. It’s exhausting. Pointless. ‘Meaningful’ relationships like that are pointless. If it’s just sex, there’s no need to pretend.”

“It’s the realisation that you don’t have to pretend that gives it worth. Not _everything_ is about sex,” Blaine sighed, sounding like there was more to that than he let on.

“Oh no?” I said. “So people _don’t_ check out your ass when you pass by?” I asked him and he blushed. “How ideal is Kurt in bed, then? Does he say what he means? Or do you not do it if you’ve picked the wrong flowers?”

Blaine looked so ready to be done with this conversation, while all I wanted was to make him squirm and admit that he’s wrong and that there’s no such thing as unreserved emotions, unconditional affection. I was beginning to feel like an asshole, to be honest, but I just didn’t know how to stop. Just wanted to throw his words right back at his face, over and over again until he realised how blind he’d been about Kurt, about love, about everything. How childish in his notions of sincerity and caring.

That’s when I heard it. The low buzzing, coming from a distance. Getting closer. I could feel it more than hear it, it felt as if it was invading my mind more than my ears. We were out in the open, no cover, nowhere to run and it was getting louder, closer. So close now. . . Then – nothing.

“Oh look, a bee!” Blaine said, pointing his finger where a small, hairy honeybee rested on one of the fake painted flowers growing on the side of my cup. Its hair was molten gold in the sunlight and I could see its little chest moving like it was panting. It must have flown a long way. It was a worker and it had a stinger. Stingers creeped me out.

“No, don’t kill it,” Blaine said. Had I looked like I was about to? What a silly thing to say. . . I lowered my arm. “She’ll go away. She’s just resting. Did you know that bees were super-important for the entire eco-system?” Blaine went on like I’d just searched an encyclopaedia-entry on bees. “They’re, like, our primary food source. Without pollination of flowers there’d be so much less to eat.”

I felt so stupid. On my mission to cheer Blaine up, I’d forgotten about my little family reunion with Melissa, which happened right here at The Buzz. When I was with him, she and her schemes just slipped my mind. And now it was too late.

I sat deathly still as the bee rose from my cup and flew around our table, circling our heads once, in an infinity pattern.

“See, she’s leaving.”

I felt a sensation on the back of my neck but before I could react, I felt a pin-prick break my skin. My hand flew to my neck as I drew a short breath.

“Sebastian?”

I tried to focus.

“Sebastian?”

But Blaine’s voice sounded so far away.

“Somebody, help!”

_Call 911!_

_Get him some water!_

_Coming through, excuse me . . ._

_Help!_

_I’m a doctor._

_Oh, thank god. Please, help me. Him. Help him._

_You’re okay, honey_.

It stung, and I felt the buzzing as if it burned under my own skin, and I became its source.

_You’re okay._

*

_It was that damn buzzing again. He walked back into the café, swarming with people. People by the entrance, people seated at the tables, people at the bar, people squeezing into old-fashioned booths._

_Sebastian tried, but couldn’t avoid looking into their enlarged, colourless eyes as he went to take his usual seat at the far end of the room, and they spoke to him, unbidden, as he passed them by._

_“I wish young people would behave more responsibly for once! You should be at school, young man,” grumbled one of the two local women who were a regular sight at The Buzz._

_“I just want us to be a happy family, Seb,” there was his father and he spoke softly, looking up from a table, with his arm around a woman so petite she looked like she could have been younger than Sebastian. He kept on walking._

_“I’d do anything for some honey cake,” cried another person in his path, grabbing the sleeve of his school blazer. “Give me honey cake!”_

_He shook them off and bumped into someone else._

_“I’ve always wanted to have a go at it in a public restroom. You interested?”_

_He swerved away from the suggestive looks and stopped by the bar, leaning on the counter. Behind the counter, there was a giant humanoid bee dressed in an apron which had the café’s logo on it. It seemed busy working the squeaky coffee-machine. There was a special honey drip._

_“I think I’ll have another espresso,” was the first thing Sebastian said. The bee inclined its gargantuan hairy head._

_“Sure. Double?” it asked in Bree’s chipper voice. Every single order briefly went under the steady, golden, sticky flow._

_“Uh, yeah –you know me, the notorious espresso drinker!”_

_“Notoriously unavailable!” the antennae on her head twitched as she delicately put the steaming cup in front of Sebastian with her long, invertebrate legs. Suddenly, he didn’t want it anymore._

_“You’re too old for me.”_

_“Funny. I don’t feel like I’m too old for you,” the bee looked at him with one glossy compound eye. “I feel like you’re too old for me.” She buzzed away to get some orders and Sebastian left the counter, fighting off people’s uninvited personal comments, to sit at his usual booth --_

_\--and found it occupied._

_It was Blaine Anderson._

_Sebastian sat down across form the boy who stared silently. Blaine had a plate of at least a dozen pieces of honey cake piled up in front of him. He waved a casual hand at the cinnamon and white layered pile. It looked frightfully delicious. “Have some. It’s on the house.”_

_“I don’t do relationships.”_

_“Just thought you might be hungry,” Blaine said with a neutral expression._

_Sebastian waited for him to say something else, but Blaine had nothing to disclose._

_“If I have some, will you tell me?”_

_Blaine only stared, his eyes not unlike the colour of honey cake before him._

_“I want you to tell me what’s bothering you. I want to fix it,” Sebastian blurted out before he could stop himself. He found that he couldn’t, in fact, stop himself. His hand reached for a piece of cake._

_“It has nothing to do with you,” Blaine spoke and Sebastian stilled, hand mid-air._

_“I still want to fix it,” he said._

_“You want to fix it?” Blaine scoffed. “What are you, some kind of deity? Is this a Greek tragedy?”_

_“I care about you being happy.”_

_“It’s called a tragedy for a reason,” he drawled. “I didn’t know you had a heart to care, Sebastian.”_

_“Is that why you won’t talk to me about what’s wrong?”_

_Blaine eyed the untouched plate._

_“What makes you think I’d want to? What makes you think you’d understand?”_

_Sebastian was exasperated. “Try me!”_

_“Why don’t **you** try some cake?” Blaine slid the plate right in front of Sebastian. “See how it goes down.” _

_Sebastian didn’t spare it a single glance._

_“Just tell me.”_

_Blaine took a deep breath, looking displeased._

_“Imagine falling in love with someone only to find out that your capacity to love them grows with every single new thing you notice about them. Their looks. Their quirks and mannerisms. Even the frustrating stuff,” he smirked. “Even the god-awful things that make you want to slap some sense into them. Imagine that kind of growing affection.”_

_Blaine paused with a distant look, eyes fixed on a random spot which happened to be the pile of cake. He then leaned across the table. Sebastian found himself leaning in as well._

_“But you could never imagine it. You don’t believe in actual love, do you?” Baine said as if he was revealing top-secret information. “To you, it’s more like an infection. A disease in the brain, sparked by desires. A seasonal allergy. Cured once you get it out of your system.”_

_“No! I don’t—It’s not like that.” Sebastian didn’t know what it was like, but he knew it was not like that._

_“What **will** it take to get me out of your system?” the other one pondered._

_“Nothing! You’re a dream.” Blaine raised his eyebrows, and Sebastian caught himself. “I mean, you’re not real.”_

_“Aren’t I? Huh.”_

_Blaine looked cunning for just a moment and then leaned in all the way, and then Sebastian was being kissed, hungrily and with a lot of tongue, assertive in way he never imagined Blaine’s kissing would be like. And he had imagined it quite a few times._

_It felt like life juice was being sucked out of him through the mouth. Persistently. Wetly._

_Also, Blaine’s tongue was very long. He never noticed that before. Long and incredibly flexible, almost as if it kept unravelling the further it prodded into Sebastian’s mouth. Tasting. Seeking. Extracting._

_This wasn’t right._

_Sebastian was suffocating. He didn’t want this, he had to break away. Blaine’s hands were wrapped around his waist and his neck, only they weren’t human hands, but rather a pair of bee’s legs, hanging on to his clothes with their little claws; and as soon as he tried to loosen their hold, he felt other pairs of dark jointy limbs attach around his body in a firm grip. He couldn’t escape._

_Just when he thought he couldn’t breathe anymore, the life-sucking proboscis finally withdrew._

_“Don’t try to break away from me, Sebastian!” the bee buzzed, sounding enraged, and more and more like Melissa. “NOW HAVE SOME CAKE BEFORE I SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR THROAT!” she yelled clicking her mandibles and waving a fistful of cake in Sebastian’s face._

_Sebastian slammed his jaw together the best he could and struggled to turn his head away. He wouldn’t. There was loud buzzing coming from the rest of the café. The crowd of large humanoid bees kept closing in on them, determined that Sebastian have some cake. **Do it!** they insisted. His head was buzzing. He wouldn’t. The creature on top of him extended its pointy tongue again as Sebastian trashed in horror. It roared and Sebastian’s felt his core buzz with the sound of its laughter._


End file.
